Plein Air Painting “The Old Stable” in San Juan Bautista, California It was a hot, sunny day for plein air painting in San Juan Bautista. Met up with a bunch of other artists including Murray Wagnon and Julia Munger Seelos. Julia gave us a demo painting in front of the old Mission. There were quite a few artists from MBPAPA. Later in the day we spotted a dozen artists from SCOPA, the Santa Cruz painting group. I chose to paint the old livery stable because I loved the blazing whiteness of it and the fancy facade against the...

The Plein Truth ← Return to Part 4 This is the final part of this series… When a lively group of plein air painters on the Monterey peninsula, and beyond, decided to form a painting club back in the early 2000s, one of the discussions that came up was the definition of plein air. After all, if it was to be an association of plein air painters then one must, as an artist, meet basic requirements to join. There was a contingent of the group that felt very comfortable with the idea that an artist could work from photos...

Plein Air is Not a Style ← Return to Part 3 Let us put this one to rest, bury it alongside that other notion that you can paint plein air in a studio. The idea that plein air is a style of painting has probably done more damage to the plein air “movement”, if you can call it that, than any other idea. The idea that plein air is a “style” is easy to debunk. If you are an artist and you say that you paint in the “plein air style”, or you allow anyone else to describe your...